Insomnium
by dnachemlia
Summary: Guilt takes many forms. Written for the Who's Dreaming Now? Challenge. Violence, gore, death, etc. Strong T rating.


**Insomnium**

Written for the Who's Dreaming Now? Challenge

Genre: Horror

Rating: FR 18/T

Characters – all, point of view to be revealed at the end (as per the challenge requirements)

Warnings: Spoilers up through season 8. Unrepentant acts of violence and gore. Death. All that stuff.

Summary: Guilt takes many forms.

Disclaimer: Still don't own.

Apparently my muse was having a serious Dexter moment today.

* * *

As he stepped out of his car, carefully arranged in his spot aboard the Navy Yard, he glanced up at the gathering storm clouds and shuddered. A peal of thunder and flash of lightning completed the foreboding atmosphere surrounding him and he pulled the collar of his coat up against the cold. Winter was definitely on its way, a fact emphasized by the sudden gust of wind that blew across the silent parking lot.

He was early but he was surprised to find only a few cars in the lot, mainly those belonging to his team. He hurried toward the building, glad that he would have some company, but he was unsure of how his team would respond to him, especially after what had happened the day before…

The agent cruised through security almost on automatic pilot, still tangentially aware of the expressions of the guards as they watched him pass, their stony faces providing silent judgment for his actions.

He rode the elevator up to the bull pen and when the doors opened he immediately noticed the oppressive silence. His instincts kicked in and he drew his weapon, carefully exiting the metal box that has so often served as an impromptu conference room and looked around. The area appeared to be deserted.

_That's weird…_

As his gaze swept the large room, he noticed something on the floor and stopped to examine a dark stain on the carpet. Soon he noticed others and, with a sudden feeling of trepidation followed the trail to the area around his desk. The stains grew larger and more frequent and as he approached he saw a pale, bloodstained hand, its fingers spread in supplication, just visible beneath one of the desks. His heart caught in his throat as he surged forward, only to find the owner of the hand lying on her side next to her overturned chair.

_Oh God…_

Her brown eyes were wide open and the expression of fear, something her rarely associated with this woman, was clear. Her chest was covered in blood, and the two dark holes in the center indicated from where that blood had emerged.

_How? How did this happen? Why…?_

He stepped away from his fallen teammate and searched the room for some sign of the one who had done this, but the room remained empty. He carefully made his way up the stairs to the second level and used the eye scanner to open the door, hoping to find someone in the safety of MTAC. Once inside, he stopped, frozen.

It looked like a slaughterhouse.

The dark screens were splashed with red, presenting strange, Rorschach-like patterns across the expanse of plasma. The source of the gore lay slumped in front of and the desks. Some of the bodies were relatively intact, while others were missing parts of their heads and faces, the pieces of which were painted across the walls and floor.

Five people. The technicians he had seen day in and day out, who he had often taken for granted, were broken and destroyed. They had just been doing their jobs, and now they were gone.

He fought back the nausea he felt surging through him and ran from the room, headed for the Director's office. The door was open and one glance inside told him he was too late. One body was laying spreadeagle just inside the door. Three dark holes were centered in the back of the prone figure and a wide pool a red congealing liquid was spreading underneath. The second body was slumped over the blood-soaked desk, the top of its head a mass of seeping red and gray mush.

The now terrified man gagged and backed away before turning and searching for some sign of the perpetrator but the building retained its tomb-like silence. He ran for the elevator and hit the button, and when it opened he dashed inside, panting with exertion and fear. The elevator descended and when it reached its destination he staggered out, pausing a moment before rushing for the lab, hoping to find some place that hadn't been touched by death.

One look inside the room told him his hopes were in vain. The normally pristine surfaces were coated with streaks of crimson, and the sight of the room's sole occupant, torn asunder by the force of the killer's bullets, nearly unhinged him.

_No! No no no __NO NO!_

Gasping for breath, he ran to the stairwell and headed for the lowest level, his last hope for finding sanctuary from the remnants of a murderous rampage.

He slammed into the door, sending in flying open, and stopped when the horrific scene met his eyes. Three bodies littered the short hallway between the stairwell and autopsy. The first lay on its back, arms akimbo, and the gray shirt it wore was soaked in scarlet. He approached and stared down at wide, ice blue eyes, denial screaming in his brain as he was faced with the fact that his mentor, a man who had seemed indestructible, would never speak to him again.

Finally he managed to tear his gaze away from the supine form to the pair of figures slumped against the far wall. The younger of the two had obviously been trying to protect his own mentor, an act that had failed horribly. The bullets had torn out the man's throat, nearly severing his head from his body, and had lodged themselves in the face of the man he had tried to shield. The older man's glasses had been shattered and the frames still held small pieces of the plastic, but the eyes behind had been obliterated.

He barely managed to keep the sobs from bursting forth from his throat as he looked away from the gruesome sight and turned to run but there was no place to go, no place that was safe. The autopsy doors swished open and suddenly he found himself in the cold room, staring at two occupied tables. The first occupant, one not covered completely by a sheet, he knew. It was the one member of his team that hadn't succumbed during the massacre, but rather was here because of _his_ stupidity, his own recklessness on the job. He looked down at the pale, still face and felt his stomach churn as his tears finally started to fall.

_I'm sorry…I'm so sorry…_

"_Sorry isn't good enough."_

Every hair on the back of his neck stood up as he realized he was not alone. He turned around and when he saw the group of people standing before him, his legs turned to rubber and barely managed to keep from falling to the floor.

_No…you can't be here._

They returned his gaze, this impossible group of familiar faces. The man on the far right, with close-cropped brown hair and dark eyes, smiled humorously at him with blood-stained lips. His arms were wrapped around his stomach, barely holding his eviscerated organs within the gaping cavity in his abdomen. The woman next to him had dark, shoulder length hair and brown eyes, and the perfectly round hole in her forehead plainly advertised the method of her demise.

_Please…no…_

The others just stared at him, anger clear in their expressions: a slim, green-eyed redhead, her smart blue blouse soaked in red and riddled with holes; a woman who had once had blonde hair, now mostly burned away, whose crystal-blue eyes were bulging from her charred and shattered face; a petite woman with black hair and eyes, and three holes in her stained white sweater; and finally his mentor's mentor, with graying hair and dark eyes and a deep red gash in his chest.

"_It's all your fault,"_ they intoned, a chorus of the damned. _"All yours."_ They pointed at the sheet-covered figure. _"You belong here, not us."_

_No…_

Suddenly the sheet fell from the other body and, unable to help himself, he looked down.

He was staring at himself.

_No. No, please…_

He felt their hands on his shoulders and he opened his mouth to scream…

"_HEY!"_

His lids snapped open and he was staring into a pair of familiar blue eyes, crinkled with worry. He let out a shuddering breath and closed his eyes as he tried to calm his still racing heartbeat. After a few moments, he opened them again and met that almost comforting stare. The man in front of him leaned back and gave him some space, but his worried expression didn't fade.

"You OK?"

"Yeah…sorry, I guess I fell asleep. Bad dream."

"I'll say. Anything you want to tell me?"

"I…no, not really. Sorry."

"Never apologize. You know that."

"Yeah, I do." He straightened up in his chair and looked over at the silent and still figure in the hospital bed. "How's he doing?"

"Better."

"He's…he's not going to die, is he?"

"He better not. He doesn't have permission."

A small smile crossed his face and he nodded. "Yeah, I guess not."

"You should go home, get some rest."

"No. I can't. I need to stay here." He couldn't keep the guilty tone out of his voice and the older man sighed.

"It's not your fault. You know that. You were both doing your jobs, and-"

"-he took the bullets meant for me. He pushed me out of the way, and now…"

"He's going to be OK. The docs say he might even wake up soon."

"Really?" A nod and a slight smirk lifted some of his anxiety, but not all. "I still want to stay, you know, until he does wake up."

"Yeah, I kind of figured that." The man clapped him on the shoulder. "But as soon as he does, you take care of yourself, understood?"

"Yeah." He looked up and met the other man's gaze. "Thanks. I'll…I'll call, if…_when_ he-"

"Yeah, I know." After one last smile and a very gentle headslap, the younger man was left alone with his partner.

He ran a rough hand over his face and sighed before slipping his partner's lax fingers around his own and sitting back to watch the slow rise and fall of the man's chest, something he had been afraid he would never see again. He thought back to his dream, everything he has seen in it, and sighed. He had never been so happy to wake up in his life.

"I'm sure our esteemed medical examiner could tell me what all that meant, but I think I already know. You guys are important to me. I guess…I need to show you that more often, huh?"

He sat and waited, silently, and as the hours passed, he worried. He worried that despite what the doctors had said he would lose his partner…his _friend_, after all.

Just as he was starting to drift off, he felt a slight pressure on the underside of his hand. He looked up at his friend's face and saw the man's eyelids start to flutter. Finally, his eyes opened and turned toward the anxious face leaning close to him.

"Hey…"

"Welcome back. How are you feeling?"

"Like…I got shot."

"Yeah, I guess that's understandable." He noticed the puzzled expression and felt a twinge of worry. "What's wrong?"

"Are you…holding my hand?"

He managed a chuckle. "Yeah, I guess I am."

"Oh…why?"

"Just making sure you don't go anywhere…Probie."

The younger man smiled and closed his eyes, finally relaxing into real sleep. After a several minutes, the senior agent was finally able to let go. He rose from his chair, took one last look, and walked out the door to call his boss.

The nightmare was over…for now.

The End

* * *

Title is Latin for "bad dream"

So, when did you figure out who it was that was dreaming? ;)


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